Keneric approached the porcupine-like guy. He did not know how much time he could get with this person because the professor said before leaving that someone needs to watch over him 24/7 and that someone could return at any time now. The struggling of the student had intensified a lot, maybe because he had sensed someone coming back into the room, but Keneric's later words made him stop dead in his tracks.
"I want to ask you some questions. I'm not with the professor. Nod if you understand." And the guy nodded.
Keneric raised a hand, careful not to get poked by one of those porcupine needles coming out of his skin, and removed the tape from the guy's mouth and said, "What's your name?"
The guy just breathed for a second, but when Keneric repeated the question, he answered, "My name is Nick."
"So Nick, what happened to you?"
He was still blindfolded so he could not see Keneric, but he remembered hearing this voice somewhere. Still, he answered, "I don't know... I was just doing my patrols on the fourth floor and started experiencing headaches, and I remember collapsing onto the ground. When I woke up, I was already here... The professor must have trapped me... I don't know what's happening and who you are, but if you help me out—"
Keneric shut the guy's mouth again, thinking to himself that Nick didn't seem to know he had mutated. Maybe he feels something weird but does not know what that is? He removed the tape from Nick's mouth again, and before he could speak, Keneric said, "Shush, I am going to release you, ok? But you can't know who I am, so I will not remove the tape over your eyes. After you are free, you can count to ten in your mind and I'll be gone, and you can do whatever you want from there. Say yes if you agree."
Nick was so excited to finally be released that he choked out, "Yes, yes, whatever you say."
Previously Nick thought he might never get free from here after being roped in this smelly place for an entire day. But by the time he was thinking all this and thanking this unknown stranger for helping him, Keneric had already moved. He turned one of his fingers to the sharp razor mandible and used it to cut the ropes tied to Nick in quick succession and disappeared out of the room.
Nick did exactly what Keneric asked him to do and counted to ten before removing the tape over his eyes. It took some time for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but he was barely able to see his porcupine-like protrusions coming out of him—or rather, he was too excited to notice anything else at the moment—and quickly ran towards the exit.
But as soon as he entered the stairway leading down to the third floor, he found there was a female guard patrolling the area who quickly discovered him and screamed, "MONSTER!"
Nick was confused for a second and said, "Where? What? Cleara, where's the monster??" But the female guard instantly attacked him, and soon another guard came running from close by, and Nick figured out the monster they were talking about was him...
Many of the students sleeping in the rooms peeked out to check what was going on, but when they saw Nick's shady figure running around in the building, they instantly closed their doors, scared to death. Nick just ran, and his mind was overflowing with questions and panic as the female guard Cleara chased after him with two more guards behind carrying those makeshift spears in hand.
The professor was alerted of the situation, and he mobilized all the guards on the four floors to chase after him. He also figured out this was Nick and not a monster and instantly looked at Melissa as if questioning, didn't he say to watch over him? Melissa instantly threw someone else under the bus, saying that's not her job but they were just about to assign someone.
Now the whole building was in chaos, and Nick was jumping all around from the third floor to the second floor in his panicked state to find any way out of this building. Meanwhile, Keneric just used this opportunity to sneak into the fourth floor again and steal some of the professor's loot for his second base.
Well, this was the best time, and nobody would be able to find out who or what did what. As for why he didn't do it last night? Well, Keneric had no good place to hide it, and he saw Melissa the last time he came. But this time, he thought there could not be any better opportunity, and why not take what we can instead of scavenging it again?
Therefore, he took all the noodles and biscuits and anything that had a long shelf life from the professor's room and wrapped it all in a blanket and threw everything down the four floors like it was nobody's business. In the chaos, nobody saw that or had the time to report to the guards because everyone was busy dealing with an open "monster" roaming around the building.
After Keneric was done, he jumped back to the third floor stealthily and entered Joy's room where she looked scared close to the door, peeking outside, and asked Ken, "Are they searching for you?"
To that, Keneric just revealed a smile and said, "Absolutely... Not," and again jumped down to the ground.
Joy screamed after him, "Wait! Where are you going?" but only saw Keneric running with a ball of stuffed bedsheet before running across the swampland into the distance.
In the meantime, Nick worked as a perfect distraction and was surrounded on the first floor, fighting all the guards and students and whoever came his way, feeling scared and not knowing what to do.